Munitions Empire-Chapter 750 : 709 Detergent Powder’s Amazing Uses

The Poplar Empire, Southwater Port, thrived with shipping activity. Merchandise from the Ice Cold Empire, exports of the Poplar Empire itself, and vessels from the southern Laines Empire all converged here.

The city, which had developed over many years, boasted numerous tall buildings and, thanks to a relatively abundant supply of electricity, was starting to resemble Brunas to some degree.

It should be known that during the past couple of years, Brunas hadn't developed at all under the operations of Laines Empire, so many cities were aiming to catch up.

Take for instance the Eternal Winter Port that specialized in exporting minerals and automobile civilization, or Winterless City, the top port of Dorne Empire.

All these cities were gradually reaching the level of Brunas, they just hadn't yet completely caught up.

In the bustling outskirts of Southwater Port, a destroyer was patrolling the waters. Lately, all allied ports had been uneasy, and everyone needed to be extremely cautious.

Tang Country had developed a very dangerous underwater weapon, a fact that had been proven. A sailor at Brunas Port, during its attack, claimed to have seen a white wake under the water.

At first, people were skeptical about this news, but as more ships sank, such claims grew increasingly credible.

More than one person claimed to have seen that underwater trail, so the existence of Tang Country's peculiar underwater weapon became an accepted fact.

Latter on, the appearance of Tang Country's underwater weapons had also been witnessed – to save torpedoes, Tang Country's submarines often surfaced to use their deck guns to sink civilian ships…

Yes, Tang Country's submarine tactics originated from wolf pack tactics, primarily focused on disrupting transportation. Their mission was to delay the enemy's shipping, sinking every visible vessel that was not flying the Tang Country Dragon Banner.

To conserve precious torpedoes, Tang Country's submarines often surfaced to engage in combat, and even sometimes robbed to increase their operational endurance at sea. The items they robbed included fruits and grains being transported on ships, clean clothes, freshwater, and the crew's personal valuables.

What was even more infuriating was the exceedingly revolting tactic that the submarine officers and soldiers of Tang Country's Navy had devised.

To save on ammunition, sometimes they would even set off with a dozen fewer rounds of ammo, using the space for storing rounds to carry a disgusting artifact: laundry detergent.

Yes, that's right, a chemical agent used for washing clothes – laundry detergent! And the use of this laundry detergent was quite simple: mix it with water!

Sometimes Tang Country's submariners wouldn't even sink the enemy's supply ships, especially those low-value fishing boats and small steamers. When they encountered such ships and if the enemy surrendered, they would mix laundry detergent into the ships' freshwater tanks and then simply sail away.

Leaving behind an enemy with completely contaminated freshwater, adrift and utterly clueless at sea. Without freshwater, these ships had to head back to port as quickly as possible, abandoning whatever cargo they carried or missions they were executing.

And infuriatingly, no matter how much the water tanks contaminated with laundry detergent were cleaned, refilling them would always result in some disgusting bubbles floating on the water, with the taste of chemicals lingering stubbornly when drinking.

This tactic conveniently left some smaller ships behind, so that on their next venture there would still be something to sink... It also allowed the enemy to save more torpedoes and shells for when they had no anti-submarine forces present, to engage more valuable targets.

They were like pirates, pillaging on the high seas, creating chaos at will and invoking the hatred of the countries in the anti-Tang alliance. And these cursed submarines would appear and disappear without trace, leaving no way to retaliate.

The alliance lacked sonar, and nearly all anti-submarine warfare options were off the table. Even if they saw a submarine dive into the water from a distance, they were helpless.

Even more frustrating, the slightest carelessness could lead to warships being ambushed by submarines. It was bad enough watching helplessly as submarines dove, but moving too slowly might even result in getting sunk, a truly infuriating situation.

Within two weeks of warfare, the Eastern Continent's anti-Tang alliance countries had already lost a significant number of transport ships. Their main fleets were haphazardly evading, in a constant state of panic.

A collier, laden with coal, was navigating the high seas, with the captain standing in the pilot house, nervously peering through his binoculars at the calm sea.

His ship was nearing Southwater Port, where a patrolling destroyer seemed to loom in the distance. Under normal circumstances, he would have been fairly safe at this point.

But he remained extremely tense, intently watching the distant sea because he had witnessed with his own eyes a ship mysteriously sunk right before him.

It was just a deafening explosion, then the ship broke in two and sank rapidly into the sea. The towering water column, as high as the tallest building, haunted his dreams every night ever since.

"Port side! Port side! Captain!" the sailor on watch, stationed higher up, shouted loudly, instantly tense the atmosphere on the bridge.

The captain quickly moved to the port side, raised his binoculars, and then he saw it – a dark, shiny tube, resembling the fin of a shark, exposed above the water!

He was so terrified that his soul nearly fled his body and promptly ordered, "Speed up! Quick! Increase speed!"

"Captain! We... we're already at maximum speed," one of his subordinates hurriedly reminded him.

To shake off a potential submarine, the ship had been traveling at its highest speed the whole way, which significantly shortened its travel distance and also affected the mechanical lifespan.

But in the interests of survival, no one objected to this approach. Everyone was acutely aware that the Tang Country's submarines seemed to have only one weakness, which was that their speed wasn't much faster than that of a civilian steamer.

If everyone's speeds were similar, then there was a chance of shaking them off by escaping, which was the only chance for a civilian ship.

The captain was somewhat panicked, as he wasn't a military officer and couldn't maintain composure in the face of the enemy.

He issued another order, commanding the ship to alter its course: "To the starboard! Hard starboard! Turn! Quick!"

The crew was nervous as well, so they immediately executed the captain's command. They didn't know how to dodge torpedoes, but moving away from that periscope poking out of the water seemed like the right choice.

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The helmsman immediately steered the rudder, and everyone anxiously waited. The coal-laden ship wasn't actually very fast, and its bulky body began to turn slowly.

But everything seemed to be too late already. Today, that submarine appeared to want to return home, or perhaps they had just set out to hunt.

They launched a torpedo, which meant either they were planning to use up their torpedoes before returning to port, or they had plenty of torpedoes and tried firing off a couple to see how it felt.

In any case, that damned Tang Country submarine had launched a torpedo! The white trail on the water's surface was painfully clear, a sight of utter despair.

A torpedo rapidly approached and struck the mid-aft section of the steamer during its turn. In the moment of the collision, the explosion caused the surrounding water to churn violently.

The towering pillar of water lifted the coal-laden ship high, and due to its force, the bow lost buoyancy and plummeted, breaking the ship in half swiftly before being slammed back onto the water.

The back-and-forth bending lifted the bow and stern again, followed by water pouring into the breach in the already broken hull.

The ship, heavily laden with coal, had barely enough buoyancy, and the incoming sea water filled the engine room in a matter of seconds.

In just a few seconds, the steamer began to sink, and the water within the hull raged through corridors and cabins, bursting through doors and flooding the crew's living quarters.

The twisted metal emitted eerie sounds, the screeching and grinding noises painfully sharp amid the tumult of the turbulent sea.

The captain, who had barely managed to get to his feet, noticed the floor tilting; his pen rolled across the floor, and the sea chart had already fallen off the table.

Through the porthole, he could see the distant sea but the single periscope of the enemy was too far to discern clearly.

The ship beneath his feet was also about to submerge. Only this time, the descent would be irreversible.

"Quick! Send out an SOS! Lower the lifeboats! All hands abandon ship!" he looked at his first mate and bellowed the orders.

The first mate had just gotten up and hurriedly went to find the signal gun hanging on the wall. The Elven destroyer cruising nearby seemed to have noticed the situation and was hurriedly turning to change course.

Fortunately, they were already very close to Southwater Port, and there were patrolling destroyers nearby; the sailors from their coal ship didn't have to stay in the water for too long.

So, as the ship swiftly sank, the surviving sailors were already rigging the lifeboats to be lowered into the water.

Meanwhile, the Tang Country submarine that had fired the torpedo was nowhere to be found. It had retracted its periscope and disappeared without a trace.

The Elven destroyer quickly approached the site of the incident but didn't slow down. After glancing from afar, it turned and left.

This selfish and cold-hearted act elicited a stream of curses from the sailors who had fallen overboard from the coal ship, but given that no one could confirm whether the submarine had truly departed, the actions of the destroyer were arguably reasonable.

If they slowed and stopped, they might have been sunk there as well. Hence, upon seeing that there were lifeboats from the sunken ship, the destroyer quickly left.

In fact, they had also notified a nearby, smaller fishing vessel to come and help, which could be considered as having fulfilled their responsibility.

On this day, at least seven transport ships from various nations were sunk in the Endless Sea, making it yet another day of heavy losses for the Anti-Tang Alliance.